exploring process and healing through fiber arts and handcrafting

Category Archives: Jabo and Belles: Handmade

Several years ago, after the handcrafting bug bit me wicked hard in the heart, I opened up an Etsy shop called Jabo and Belles: Handmade. I named it that because at that time, when my son, Jacob, and daughter, Else, were wee ones, they went by many nicknames. They still do, but these two stuck. Jabo was what a friend of mine’s daughter called Jacob because, well, that’s how his name came out of her little self. Belles is what I call my daughter. Belles, Belly, Belly-boo, Elsebellsa… I picked Belles because it flows for me. People ask me how to pronounce Jabo all the time. It’s with a long a… ā. Jābo and Belles. And why Handmade after their names? Well, I’ve not done anything as creative, as handsy, as fully embodied as growing, birthing and raising my children. And, if not for them, I likely would not have re-engaged with knitting, learned how to crochet or begun spinning wool and doing all of the other fun things I do now.

Because of a series of decisions that my husband and I made together, I was afforded a mid-life chance to get to know myself again, in a different way, and I discovered a love for fiber art and handcrafting I didn’t even know was there. My immersion into the handcrafting scene, next to having my children, has influenced what is easily the most creative time in my life so far. It’s opened up new worlds to me, including in the context of my professional role as psychologist and therapist, and it’s allowed me to make friends with people I otherwise would never have met.

Getting involved in the handcrafting community has given me a chance to do things I was not terribly good at doing as a young adult~ following whims, experimenting with materials and found objects, showing up in places where I don’t know a soul and saying, “hi, can I see what you’re doing?” without embarrassment or self-consciousness. As a young adult, I felt so driven to know what I was going to do, to have a set plan, to have it all figured out so I wouldn’t mess anything up… those qualities can be good in many ways, but I do believe, as a result of an overcommitment to anxious planning, I ended up not noticing what moved me, what spoke to me and I certainly never saw myself as especially creative.

How all of this has changed. It’s remarkable. I feel so fortunate to get to make things, to get to sell things online and in craft shows, and to feel so deeply connected to people I don’t even know and might never meet who also love making things. I also love respectful stewards of land and animals~ their love of the animals they raise allows for many of us without fiber animals to enjoy the bounty, and to experience as much as we can of such natural processes as growing, tending, creating.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’ve reopened my shop after taking a hiatus from making to sell. I just wasn’t keeping up and needed to get some focus back. I do tend to be all over the place.

I hope every week to be able to post pics of one new thing heading into the shop. Here’s a few pics of what’s in there now!

If you like what you see, feel free to pass it on to other folks who love fibery/handcrafty/madewithlove treats.